The Role of Renewal

Our most basic survival need is to spend and renew energy. We’re hard-wired to pulse – to be alert during the day and to sleep at night. We're at our best when we work at high intensity for limited periods of time, and then intentionally renew ourselves. But instead we lead increasingly linear lives.

By putting in long, continuous hours sitting at our desks, we expend too much mental and emotional energy without sufficient intermittent renewal. It’s not just rest and rejuvenation we sacrifice by working this way, but also the value we derive during renewal: creative breakthroughs, broader perspective, the chance to think more reflectively and long term, and sufficient time to metabolize what we’ve learned.

The other problem with living mostly desk-bound sedentary lives is that we expend too little physical energy, and so we get progressively weaker. Movement and exercise not only build our strength and endurance, but also improve the quality of our thinking, and provide a source of emotional renewal.

FIND OUT MORE

• The Performance Zone
• Our Four Forgotten Needs